Connectors are commonly used for joining together electronic assemblies, such as Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). One particular type of connector is formed by several wafer modules arranged side by side, with each module including multiple conductive pins which are press-fitted into corresponding plated holes of the circuit board. Connectors of this type are known as very high density metric (or “VHDM”) connectors. VHDM connectors are modular in that they are constructed with wafers that can be removed and replaced after the connector has been installed on the circuit board. VHDM connectors provide a high-density solution that allows designers to grow their system horizontally by creating traditional backplane components in a right-angle orientation. VHDM connectors provide interfacing directly to the edge of the circuit board to which they are attached.
An example of a typical VHDM connector is shown in FIG. 1. The VHDM connector 100 is modular, in that it is comprised of a row of wafer modules 102a-d. The wafer modules 102a-d can be removed and replaced after the connector 100 is installed on a circuit board. FIG. 2 shows the VHDM connector 100 with two wafer modules 102m and 102n removed from slots 202 and 204, respectively.
There are circumstances in which it is desirable to re-route a signal pathway on a printed circuit board. For instance, during testing, a software verification group may need a way to introduce hardware “bugs” to determine if their code handles errors correctly. Unfortunately, pin-to-pin connections are dependent solely on the design of the circuit board to which the connector is attached. The only way to re-route a signal to a different connector pin is to modify the circuit board. However, such circuit wiring changes become difficult once a circuit board has been designed and built, and generally require removing the connector, drilling plated thru-holes (PTHs), epoxy filling and re-drilling (to isolate the pin from the circuit board), and reinstalling a connector. Other changes to the design may require sending the signal directly to a location on the board. Drawbacks of this approach include permanent modification to the circuit board and the risk of damage to other areas on the circuit board.